Reflections of the Yesterday
by Jay EL 24.8
Summary: One day, the world disappeared. Another day, after time had passed, those who are the world saw light again without the chains of past. Main RusAme, changed the summary and the title from "Memories", is NOT discontinued.
1. Arrival in the middle of sunflowers

Summary: One day, every single nation's personification suddenly and without a warning, disappeared. Now is year 2060 and the World shall meet once again, in Japan's most respected international boarding school, the Hetalia Academy...

Pairings: the main is RussiAmerica, but there will be other pairings at side

Warnings: boy x boy loving, OCs and such

Rated: K+ for now

Genre: romance, angst, comedy, general

A/N: Hello there. Glad to see someone stumbling upon this! Before you take a further look into the story that I write, I must warn you that I may be slow to update at times. If that doesn't bother you as much as it bothers me, then please continue reading. Because, really. What do you have to lose?

* * *

_--if this world can change--_

_--to those days when I knew nothing--_

_--please take me there, so my memories won't fade away--_

-Memories by Maki Otsuki

* * *

_He was in the middle of something that looked like a battle field. There were people, who he assumed to be soldiers, everywhere. Some looked like they were already dead or unconscious, some were still howling and crying with the agony of their wounds. He looked down at himself and he noted that he was clothed with something that he thought was from early 19th century or so. Young man flinched when he saw a rifle in his hands, which were red from blood, his own or somebody else s, he didn't know. At first he considered throwing the weapon away but instead he brought it up and examined it closer. It wasn't that different from the rifles that he had seen on TV, though there was a scratch-_

"Alfred!"

His eyes snapped open when he was pulled away from his dream and it took a moment for him to recognize where he was. In front of him he could see through the car's window a nice scenery of a field full of - were those sunflowers?

_He felt a bang of something_ - guilt, fear, longing - _deep inside him, though he didn't know why._

Then the young man turned to look at the one who had woken him up from the dream - what was it about again? He shrugged it off.

_Like always._

Next to him on the backseat of the car was a boy, as young as himself. He had a golden locks, which slightly curled up at the ends and blue eyes with a glint of something purple-ish behind glasses. It was like he was looking at the mirror. Though, what do you expect, it was his twin brother after all.

"Aww, Matthew," he - _Alfred_ - mumbled and took his glasses off so he could rub his eyes. "Why did you wake me up?"

"You can't sleep through the whole trip, Al," Matthew sighed. "And we'll be there soon."

The younger of them pointed out of the window. Alfred put his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and turned to look at the direction that his brother was pointing at. The field of sunflowers was gone now - _like him_ - and now there are trees and behind them they could see a building. It was their new boarding school, the Hetalia Academy.

* * *

Chapter One of _**Memories**_

----arrival in the middle of sunflowers----

* * *

They stepped out of the car. Alfred took his luggage out of the taxi and glanced up at the building. He had to shield his eyes with his hand when the sun shined brightly from behind the large house. _House?!_ Alfred thought. _More like a castle or something._

It truly was a large building. Though it was a boarding school after all - not only there was many classrooms, but dorms for students to stay as well. And it was a well-known and the most respected school in Japan so you shouldn't be waiting for anything else.

Alfred and Matthew's parents had sent them from the United States, which had suffered pretty badly from the third World War. They couldn't afford a proper education for them so they had send them all the way to Japan, which hadn't been part of the war leaving it with few problems.

_Figures. He was clever enough to keep himself out of the trouble if not needed-_

"Alfred?" Matthew interrupted his thoughts again. Alfred turned to look at his twin brother when the taxi drove off the school yard. They were alone now.

"You're spacing off a lot today, eh," Matthew sighed. "Well, it's a new school after all."

_Not just that, though_, Alfred thought. Right after - and even before - they had landed on Tokyo, he had felt something strange. Like he was floating.

He had had weird dreams and such before, but the ground he was currently standing on felt so... familiar. It was pretty weird, considering that he had never before been in Japan. Actually he had never before been in any other countries expect States, so it was rather exciting to be there, even if it was just for school and even if he was miles away from civilization.

And something was wrong with that school.

Yes, _that_ school, the humongous building right in front of him.

And again he had that feeling. Like he should remember something, but he didn't. And that irritated him to no end.

"Let's go inside, eh?" Matthew asked and smiled brightly. Why yes, he clearly had gotten that smile from Alfred. Alfred gave an even brighter grin to his brother and his pearly white teeth glittered in sunlight. Pepsodent.

But before they were even close to the large double-doors, one of the doors opened and a very serious looking man stepped outside.

_He had seen him so many times earlier, so many times they had fought against each others-_

"You must be two of the new students?" The man asked with an accent. He had his blond hair slicked back and very blue eyes finishing off his pale looks.

"Ah, yes, we are..." Matthew started, but Alfred bounced - _bounced_ - to the man and said:

"Yeah, from States! I'm the awesome Alfred F. Jones and this is my not-so-awesome brother Matthew Jones! It's very nice to meet you, whoever-you-are!" Alfred announced, with a high pitch at the end of his sentences and his grin rivaling the sun itself.

Another man just stared at him for a few seconds before glancing at Matthew and then back at Alfred. He coughed.

"...Okay," he said. "My name is Ludwig Weillschmidt. Since you are here already, I'll escort you to the principal's offi-"

"Oh really? Cool! Let's go already!" Alfred said - more like _yelled_, and went inside, looking around him like an excited child who had just been given a chance to roam freely at an unknown house.

"...Is he always like that?" The man named Ludwig asked, glancing at Matthew. Latter sighed.

"Yes," Matthew said and smiled a little. "He's not that bad when you learn to know him, though."

_He truly always was like that, never changing, like the sun shining upon us-_

"Anyways, are you something like student council president or..?" Matthew then asked from the another man.

"Well, my _Vati_ - I mean, Father, is this school's vice principal, so I sometimes run errands for him..." Ludwig told Matthew and gestured him to step inside too. Matthew did and they followed Alfred, who was, surprisingly, going into right direction, "And student council's president hasn't been chosen yet, seeing that school year started just over two weeks ago."

"Oh, so you choose every year a new president, eh?" Matthew asked. Ludwig nodded and suddenly raised his voice at Alfred's direction:

"Hey that's wrong direction! Turn right, _right_!"

Matthew laughed quietly when Alfred's head peaked from behind the corner and they could hear a quiet:

"Ehh?? But this way it looks so interesting, you know! In what direction is right anyways?"

Ludwig felt like face-palming himself. How could anyone be so... stupid?

_Well, he always was a pretty unique nati--_

"Just stay there where you are, okay?" Ludwig told Alfred and the latter nodded and straightened his back and nearly raised his right hand to his forehead to do a mock military salutation when he suddenly just... didn't feel like doing it. It somehow felt so wrong and distant but yet so right and familiar. It was a very weird feeling to say at least.

But then something caught his eye. At end of the corridor which was going to go at first, there was a boy looking out of the window. He seemed pretty tall and he had a creamy white scarf on his shoulders along with his school uniform. His white hair shined in sunlight-

_When he looked up, he could see that so white hair shining in too bright sunlight, the purple eyes looking down at him, the corners of his lips curling up in triumph and satisfaction._

_"So," the man asked with an innocent, childish voice, from what Alfred knew that behind it was threat, 'you've lost, don't try anything, _I own you_'..._

_"What does it feel like, to be under my command, dear Ame-"_

"Al, you're spacing off again," he suddenly heard Matthew saying. Alfred sighed and shook his head to clear the image from his brain cells. It couldn't leave; that cruel face looking down at him...

_What the hell was that?_ Alfred thought and looked at the large windows. The boy was gone and through the window he could see a field of sunflowers.

_Sunflowers._

"We're going to leave you behind, you know," Matthew's voice interrupted him again. Alfred turned around and saw that his brother and Ludwig were already far away, walking down the other corridor.

"What?!" Alfred yelled and started to run towards them. "Wait for _the awesome_ meee~!"

From behind the corner, purple eyes followed the American, who was now wildly flailing his arms and yelling at the other two to wait for him.

_His golden hair was so bright when he sat at the other side of the small table. Those eyes, blue as sky, glanced at him, waiting for an answer._

_"So?" He asked, his still so young voice filled with curiousness and impatience. "Which one is it?"_

_Other one only kept smiling._

Why would it be that that American was so familiar to him, with some weird and twisted way? He seemed pretty interesting, seeing how idiotic and boisterous he was.

Fun to break.

He smirked. This school year would be fun.

"Брат?" Someone suddenly asked. Man turned to look behind him. He saw a young woman, with long white hair and an icy look in her eyes.

"Ah, Nataliya," man said and smiled a little, though he took a wary step away from her.

"...Are you going to stalk that idiot?" The woman with a name of Nataliya asked.

"Why would I stalk anyone?" He asked innocently. He was tempted to add _it's your job_, but didn't.

Nataliya shrugged and turned away to leave. When she disappeared behind the corner, man's smile died and he glanced at the corridor where three men were just a moment ago. Now, it was empty. He smiled and turned his back to follow his sister.

"Hey, wasn't those the Northern American brothers?" A man with a childish smile and brown hair asked the another. He was looking out of the window, down at the school yard. Another man, with long blond hair and serious face, stepped next to him and looked at the direction that another is pointing him.

"Yes," the blond said. "Alfred F. Jones and Matthew Williams. Also known as-"

"Yeah yeah, I know!" Another interrupted and waved his hand to dismiss it. Blond frowned.

"I wonder if they know already," brown haired man muttered.

"That would be unexpected," serious one told him.

"I know," another sighed, "but you can always hope. Hey isn't that some of those Europeans? You know, the one who was pretty familiar with Americans and such?"

And they looked down, out of the window, when another taxi drove on the yard.

_--the end of chapter one of "memories"_

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A/N: Thank you for reading and please tell me what you think about it so far via review!

(Russian) Брат, _brat_ = "brother"


	2. While I don't

Young man looked up at the huge building before him. He had been there before. Why, he had already studied there for a half of his first high school year, but now he arrived few weeks later after a new term had started because of some international problems between Japan and United Kingdom.

_But why does it feel so different somehow?_

He shook his head and closed his eyes. It's not use thinking about it. _I should go to principal_, he thought. His emerald eyes opened once again, he inhaled deeply and started to walk towards the doors.

* * *

Chapter Two of _**Memories**_

----while I don't----

* * *

"Come in!"

Upon hearing the voice, Ludwig opened the door and stepped to the side to let brothers in. Alfred immediately went through the door, with a wide grin decorating his face and Matthew followed suit after him, as a complete contrast to his brother. Younger of the two was smiling nervously and kept his eyes at the floor. Ludwig closed the door behind them and walked next to Matthew and said:

"_Vati_, _Herr_ Vargas, I brought the Americans."

"Oh, excellent Ludwig, excellent!" The man who was sitting behind a wooden desk on a comfortable looking chair said and grinned. Next to him was standing a _very_ serious looking man with a long blond hair. Latter just nodded to Ludwig and he did the same.

_They were once great leaders and in the flow of time they became legends-_

"So, you're the ones from the States, huh? Cool! I was already waiting for you! Nice to meet you, I'm Julius Vargas, the principal and the founder of this school," brown haired man said with a big smile and stood up from his chair.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you too! I'm Alfred F. Jones and this is my brother Matthew Jones," Alfred said and grinned even wider, competiting with older man's smile. Ludwig made a side note that he would probably go blind if he had to stare at those smiles for too long.

"Nice to meet you, too..." Matthew said quietly and bowed slightly his head. Principal Vargas acknowledged him by a nod. Alfred decided that he was seeing things. Who in the hell would notice his practically invisible brother?

"So, let's get to the business!" The man announced and walked around his desk to stand right before two brothers and then leaned back to almost sit on the desk. "You're hopefully going to stay here for three years and as you already may know, we have dorms here and everyone has to share their room with another student, but no worries, there's plenty of space and you're probably going to share the room with each others, so no problem here. As a side-note, there's also environments where you can spend your free-time, you'll see those later. Diederich, those papers about dorm rooms, please?"

Blond man nodded and took papers out of nowhere and gave them to the other man, who smiled as a 'thank you' and passed the documents to Americans. Before Alfred could even touch them, Matthew snatched them away from principal's hand in fear that his brother would lose them. Older man blinked once and then chuckled, causing Matthew to blush slightly. Alfred just glanced at both of them, completely oblivious. Ludwig sighed.

"You have very funny brother," principal Vargas said to Alfred who just stared at him. _I do?_ he thought but then just shrugged. Matthew looked away.

"Anyways, then you of course have your own class room, because in this school we have such a system that you stay in one room and your teacher changes within every new subject. One class is fourty-five minutes long. Okay, so do you get everything?" Julius told them. Both of the brothers nodded, Alfred being abnormally quiet, and the man grinned and continued:

"We have pretty much same subjects here as in States, so there's nothing to tell about them, but I'll still give you your schedule. Diederich?"

The man called Diederich sighed and went to the bookself and took a blue folder. He flipped through different documents for a few moments before walking over Americans and gave them their own timetables.

"You can see your class in that thing by the way," brown haired man noted while another returned the folder to it's respected place.

"'The first year, class B?'" Alfred read from the paper.

"Me too..." Matthew told quietly.

"Yeah, I'll have Ludwig or someone to show you where your class is when we're through this," principal said. "Anyways, about eating. We have a cafeteria where you can order pretty much everything. We have a breakfast at eight o'clock at the morning, lunch at half past eleven, meal at four o'clock at afternoon and supper at eight o'clock at evening. Is that clear? I can give you more papers if you want."

"No need, of course I'll remember something like that!" Alfred announced, "Because I'm the hero, you know!"

_"Then what will you be?"_

_"Why, I'm the hero of course!"_

Everyone stared at Alfred for awhile. Then principal started laughing loudly and Matthew sighed and rolled his eyes when Ludwig and Diederich just continued staring at the older of two twins. After a moment Julius calmed down.

"You're such a funny brothers! I like you," he told them while cathing his breath.

"Really?!" Alfred asked, completely oblivious to everything, like always. Matthew just sighed again and said:

"Sorry, he's always like that..."

"Oh, nothing, nothing! He's very entertaining," brown haired man said. Alfred remained oblivious.

"Where were we again? Oh yeah, the cafeteria! You can get there anything anytime and nothing else to add in that one. Then there's everything not-so important so I'll just give you more papers," principal said and then turned to look at Diederich with a pleading look. Blond man sighed and gave to his superior few papers who took them with a wide grin and passed them off to brothers. Matthew took them again.

"So, Ludwig, _caro_, would you please show them around a little? Oh, and if you see my sweet grandson, please tell him to come here immediately," Julius said to a quiet young man who nodded.

"...Which one?" Ludwig then asked.

"Feli," principal said with a sing-song voice and smiled. "Now, if you could leave, I'm having another student coming here soon. Who was it again, Diederich?"

Diederich looked at brown haired man for a moment and then replied:

"Arthur Kirkland."

Alfred froze completely.

_"Hey, how are you, my boy? It has been so long time!"_

_"You're already taller than me..."_

_"So... you're really... leaving...?"_

_"...Alfred..."_

Suddenly he was starting to feel rather dizzy.

"...Alfred?"

His head snapped in Matthew's direction, who was looking at him with a worried look in his purple-ish eyes.

"Is everything alright?" Matthew asked. Alfred inhaled a little bit too deeply.

"Yeah," he said and grinned but it turned out as more like a weak grimace. "Just... a jet-lag or something. Nothing too serious!"

No one noticed when Julius and Diederich glanced at each other.

"We should leave so we can get quickly done with this and you'll get some rest," Ludwig stated. Matthew nodded and yanked Alfred's bomber jacket's sleeve a little.

"Let's go get something to drink to you," younger of two said. Alfred nodded and grinned weakly. He could feel the head-ache coming...

After the door closed, Julius and Diederich were left alone.

"He'll remember soon," brown-haired man muttered. Other nodded.

"Other one too," Diederich noted quietly.

"Yeah."

"What?" A young man asked, "He finally came?"

"Yeah," other one replied, "Took him long enough."

"Hey hey, I heard that today arrived some new Americans, too!" Another one announced.

"Americans?" The blond man wondered, "What year?"

"Second," albino replied. Brown haired man sighed.

"Aww, that's too bad," he said. "I wonder if they're in the same class as him."

"Very much possible," blond said. "Well, I'm going now. I have to greet him after all this time."

_--the end of chapter two of "memories"_

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**Author notes:** Hahah, guess who are those three! Or is it too obvious.

Anyways, thank you for all of you guys for reviewing, alerting and even favouriting this fanfic! I really appreciate it!

Oh, but we got some new characters, Rome and Germania! Here, I'll tell you about names that I chose for them.

Rome's name is Julius Vargas. Julius is from Julius Caesar, obviously. I've seen it used in some other fics and I thought that it fits him, so there. And Vargas is Italies surname so I thought I'll use that.

As for Germania, his name is Diederich Weillschimidt. Weillschmidt is Gilbert's surname so that's all about it (I by the way made it Ludwig's surname too, because for some reason he doesn't have one) but his first name was harder one. "Diederich" is an older form of "Dietrich", which is a form of "Theodoric". I'll copy-paste something about that one:

"From a Germanic name meaning "ruler of the people", derived from the elements þeud "people" and ric "power, ruler". It was notably borne by Theodoric the Great, a 6th-century king of the Ostrogoths who eventually became the ruler of Italy. By Theodoric's time the Ostrogoths were partially Romanized and his name was regularly recorded as Theodoricus. The Gothic original may have been Þiudreiks."

And about foreign languages that there was (online translator, so..):

(German) _Vati_ = "dad"

(German) _Herr_ = "mister", "sir"

(Italian) _caro_ = "dear", "precious"

Oh, and if it feels like it's going too US/UK, no worries, if there will even be anything for that, it'll remain just as a side pairing, main is still RussiAmerica.


	3. Artistic Circle

"First person who I meet after my arriving here is _you_?" Sandy blond asked from the tall man before him. "And why this honour?"

"Oh, I don't know! Maybe I just happened to be near the doors?" The man with a creamy coloured scarf said with a sing-song voice.

"Maybe," blond frowned. "Now, move out of my way, git. I have to meet principal."

"Ah, конечно. You just arrived from your long, long holiday after all, Дa?" The taller one smiled. But blond could see through that smile - you just simply couldn't trust that man.

"Yes. Now move," shorter one told other one. Latter chuckled quietly and then moved out of his way. Blond immediately continued walking towards principal's office.

"Oh, I just remembered," silver haired man said suddenly but kept his back to the blond who didn't stop to listen other one. "Today arrived some other new students too. Two American brothers, if I'm not wrong."

Blond stopped. Instead the man with a scarf started making his way forward.

"Well, it was nice to see you Arthur. Дo свидания," he said. Arthur spun around to look at the man and maybe even question him, but he had already vanished behind the corner. Words died on blond's lips and he looked at the corner for a moment. Then he wet his lips and said quietly, as if testing how the word would roll from his tongue:

"Americans...?"

* * *

Chapter Three of _**Memories**_

----artistic circle----

* * *

"So what's it like in States?" The albino asked.

Ludwig had lead Alfred and Matthew to their shared room and they had left their luggage there. After that, they had left to cafeteria, because Alfred needed coffee. Just when Alfred was ordering coffee via his student card, a loud albino had come to Ludwig and so it had resulted to this situation. In this situation, where the albino, who was apparently called Gilbert-

_The proud one, who is no more-_

-was giving to brothers an interrogation.

"Well, I guess it isn't that different from Japan or anything," Alfred said while drinking his coffee - _delicious coffee_ - so it was rather hard to understand him.

"But isn't it pretty poor after the war? That's the reason why you came here, right?" Gilbert frowned.

"Yeah, kinda," Alfred said and finished his cup of coffee. "But it was mostly because there ain't any good teachers and schools or something like that so our parents sent us here."

"Oh, that so," Gilbert said.

"Where are you from anyways? You have funny accent," Alfred asked.

"Germany," albino replied and grinned. "Ludwig here is my brother."

"What?!" Alfred screeched. "I didn't even notice! You are too different to be brothers."

Gilbert laughed loudly. Ludwig just sighed.

"I know, I know," Gilbert told them, catching his breath. "Hey, are you twins by the way?"

"Yeah," Alfred replied, once again confused that someone had noticed his brother - for a _second_ time that day. Something was really wrong with this school.

"I'm the older one," Alfred then added and grinned widely.

"By few minutes," Matthew muttered.

"Who cares, I'm still older than you," Alfred shot back. Gilbert laughed again.

"You're very funny," the albino announced. "I like you!"

"What, you too?" Alfred asked, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Principal said that too."

"_Leiter_ likes everyone!" Gilbert exclaimed. "There isn't anyone that he wouldn't like. Though he obviously favours his grandsons, damn it, Lovi never gets detention or anything..."

"Wait a sec, grandsons?" Alfred stared at Gilbert.

"Um... yeah? He has two grandsons. He doesn't look like that, does he?" Gilbert replied.

"He's _that_ old?!" Alfred yelled.

_Even older._

"No one knows his real age, though," Ludwig told them, as if annoyed for not getting to say anything. "Oh, Feliciano is there. I'll go there for a moment."

He stood up from his chair and took a few steps towards brown haired man who had just stepped into cafeteria along-side some girl, who had long brown hair.

"What? Why?" Gilbert demanded to know. "You almost never go talk to him voluntarily, so why now?"

"Because I have a message to him from _herr_ Vargas," Ludwig sighed, glancing at his brother and continued walking.

"That's principal's grandson?" Alfred asked and tried to get a better look.

"Yeah, Feliciano Vargas," Gilbert replied. "He has a twin too, Lovino. Though they're pretty different so you probably won't mix them up."

They stared at Ludwig talking to a boy called Feliciano for a few moments, before Feliciano said something cheerfully and Ludwig turned to take his leave. When he noticed three stares, he stopped at stared back. Alfred, Gilbert and Matthew quickly looked elsewhere and soon Ludwig was by them again.

"Was it that interesting?" he asked.

"Well, not really," Gilbert shrugged. Alfred nodded.

"Yeah, not really," he said. Matthew just kept looking away.

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Gilbert's gaze strayed at the clock and he quickly sprang up on his feets, startling everyone.

"Damn it, I'm having a class!" he quickly went around the table and turned to wave his hand at the stunned trio. "It was nice to meet you etcetera, I gotta go! Shit, I'll be late - again..."

Three blonds just stared at Gilbert's retreating form, which rushed out of the cafeteria and quickly disappeared behind the corner.

After a moment, Ludwig coughed and said:

"How about I show you back to your room and at the way I can show you some of our spare time pastimes?"

Alfred and Matthew looked at Ludwig and then at each other and nodded.

"Yeah, it's fine," Alfred said and rose from his chair and Matthew followed his example. Ludwig led them to the main doors. They were tall, but not as tall as twin doors at the opposite wall. They led outside and consisted almost entirely of glass, but the main doors were simple.

Alfred glanced back. At the left of him was the counter where students could order whatever they wanted via their student card. Looking from the counter, at the opposite wall hanged many paintings which all represented different landscapes.

And then came the cafeteria itself. The ceiling was higher than with the counter and there was many dining tables which each offered a different number of chairs. There was many large windows with blue curtains and even more of different paintings hanging from light blue coloured walls. The room itself was very calming.

Alfred turned his gaze from the cafeteria to Ludwig and Matthew. He was few meters behind them and he found himself staring at their backs.

_He was an enemy, he could have shot him when he turned his back, but he didn't and that left him to wonder why._

Alfred blinked. Where did _that_ come from? He shook his head and then his eyes landed on his younger brother's back.

_His beautiful home was burning and he could feel it in his chest, painful sensation of hot _hot _fire inside his rib cage and he would look at that back, shadowed against bright fire and he just wanted to ask why._

Alfred shook his head again, harder this time. When he glanced at those backs again, any flash didn't come and Alfred wondered if he was still jet-lagged.

But soon he continued staring at every painting hanging from the wall and examine every view he got from windows while distantly listening to his brother's and German's occasional chatting.

_There's so many paintings_, young American thought. _I wonder if the principal likes art._

_--the end of chapter three of "memories"_

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**Author notes:** I just noticed that I don't have any idea what language they're using here. So... let's... just believe that... they use some random language. The end of discussion. (But... Ivan speaks Russian and Gilbert German, so I don't know. Maybe Esperanto? I'll think about that. (Though you can always tell your opinion via review...))

Anyways, we finally got Arthur (like, officially)! And Gilbert too!! And even more Ivan! Be happy. As a side-note, there will be a lot of OCs, so if you don't like that take that as a warning.

Foreign languages:

(Russian) конечно, konetšno = "of course"

(Russian) Дa, da = "yes" (Ivan's famous "da")

(Russian) Дo свидания, do svidaniya = "goodbye", "see you later"

(German) Herr = "mister", "sir"

(German) Leiter = "principal"


	4. Home of Dreams

"So, you're back," the man with a long blond hair said to the another one in front of him.

"It certainly seems like that, you frog," the sandy blond haired man - _Arthur_ - snarled.

"I was already worried that you wouldn't come back, _mon cher_," the long haired one said with a low voice.

"No need for that," Arthur mumbled. "Of course I'll come back _here_."

"I know," another smiled. "_Parce que cet endroit est notre maison, après tout._"

* * *

Chapter Four of _**Memories**_  
----home of dreams----

* * *

"Alfred!"

The one mentioned slowly cracked one eye open and was greeted by blinding rays of sun. He groaned and turned his back to the window.

"For maple's sake... Al! We're going to be late!" Someone yelled. Wait, that voice sounded kinda familiar... Oh, it was just his brother.

"What, Mattie," Alfred mumbled against his pillow. "Why are you disturbing my holy sleep?"

"What 'holy sleep'?" Younger of the two brothers asked. "Anyways, wake up! We really shouldn't be late, on our first day here on top of it."

"You can go, just let me sleep a little bit more..." Alfred sighed and snuggled against his oh-so-soft matress, trying to fall asleep again.

But all his attempts failed when his twin brother promptly grabbed his sheets and pulled them away from Alfred. Latter, trying to get them back, soon found himself from the floor.

"Geez, Mattie! At least let people sleep in peace!" Alfred whined, rolling around on the floor and mumbling incoherencies.

"How old are you again?" Matthew wondered. "It's already almost quarter to nine! You slept through the breakfast just because I was stupid enough to trust you to actually stay awake after I left!"

Alfred actually didn't even listen to him. Instead, he just kept on whining, but at least he didn't roll on the floor anymore and had settled on one position, facing the wall and curled up like a cat.

Matthew sighed, threw the sheets back on the bed and kneeled next to his brother.

"Just get your clothes on and brush your teeth, will you? Our class starts in fifteen minutes," Matthew asked and poked his brother's side.

"...Fine," Alfred mumbled and sat up, now facing Matthew. "But not because you ask me to."

Alfred stood up from the floor and went to get his school uniform that had been delivered at the previous evening after the supper to them by a kinda grumpy Italian, who apparently was principal's another grand-son. Seriously, how old that guy was? Did he have some kind of beauty surgeries or something to look younger than he really was?

While waiting for Alfred to get his clothes on and to brush his teeth, Matthew glanced around the room where they would be living for the next few years. It was a fairly big, square room with light blue walls. When one would have stepped inside of the door, they would have seen the large windows on the opposite wall, which had violet curtains. At the either side of the room, there were two beds, the one at the right side for Matthew and one at the left for Alfred. Next to the beds, there were desks, chairs and wardrobes.

Between the two windows at another wall, there was a blue couch and in front of it was a table. Next to the Matthew's wardrobe there was another door that led to the bathroom. There was toilet and a shower.

In whole, it was a nice room. No problem using it.

"I'm ready!" Alfred suddenly yelled, sprinting out of the bathroom. He was fully dressed in his school uniform - blue and violet pants that had a pattern like tartan, white shirt with a yellowish vest on top of it and a blue jacket. Matthew's was exactly the same.

"You don't have your glasses on," younger of the two noted to his brother. "And you have tooth-paste on your cheek."

"Geez, Matthew, you sound just like Mom!" Alfred muttered and went to get his glasses.

"At least wipe the tooth paste away as well!" Matthew complained and wiped the white substance away by himself from Alfred's cheek. "I seriously sometimes wonder how old you really are. Anyways, let's go or we're going to be late!"

Alfred murmured something incoherence and then they finally left their room, Matthew making sure they locked it. Then the younger one noted to his brother:

"Didn't that boy who gave us our uniforms tell us to go to principal at first?"

"I guess so," Alfred mumbled. "Where was the office, again?"

"You're unbelieavable," Matthew sighed. "Let me show you the way."

After turning right, left from few corridors, they were before the door that announced _Principal Julius Vargas_. Matthew knocked on the door a little bit hesitantly.

"Come in!" Someone told them from the other side. Matthew opened the door and let his brother step in before him and the came in himself and closed the door.

"Ah, North American brothers!" the principal noted with a blinding grin. "I was already starting to get worried if you wouldn't show up at all."

"I apologize for being so late, mister Vargas," Matthew said politely. The principal laughed.

"No need for being so stiff!" He announced and Matthew nodded quietly. "Now, please follow Diederich. He's your class's main teacher and also teaches you history. Be nice to him~!"

Twins' attention turned to the German man, who tried to look like he didn't care. And succeeded.

"Follow me," the blond said stiffly and when he stepped towards the door, two brothers automatically stepped to the side and let him go before them. As they left, both turned to look at the principal over their shoulder, Matthew nodding nervously while Alfred gave his widest smile and waved with his hand before shutting the door.

Julius Vargas sighed. He was once again left alone, sitting in his large office behind the desk on a nice chair. The light coming from behind him was framed in front of him on the floor into a shape of a window and its many smaller squares. The corners of the room were dark there where the light couldn't reach.

_You could say the same about the path he was walking back then._

Alfred and Matthew followed their teacher, the vice principal, in silence. In Alfred's eyes, every single wall looked just like a copy of others, only difference in paintings. The one they were treating now had countless windows next to one another on the wall at the right side from them, showing a scenery of a field of flowers that name Alfred did not know.

"Mister Deiderich," Alfred then voiced out. The man acknowledged him with a lingering glance. "What flowers those are?"

"...There is three different kinds of flowers on that field," Diederich told him with a low voice. "Lily, cornflower and red carnation."

"The field looks very beautiful," Matthew noted, looking out of the windows.

"...Indeed," the vice principal agreed as the field disappeared behind the corner. Soon the man stopped and opened some door. When Alfred glanced up he caught a sight of a sign saying "1-B". Then the brothers followed their vice principal and teacher inside.

The chatting of their future class-mates quieted down when they stepped in the class. Now everyone's eyes were on the two brothers.

"Class," Diederich started with a firm and serious voice. "These two will be attending this class from this day on. Be nice to them." Then he turned to the twins. "Please introduce yourselves."

Alfred gave his brightest smile possible and said cheerfully:

"Well hello! I'm Alfred F. Jones and this is my bro Matthew! Nice to meet you all!"

When mentioning Matthew he swung his arm around his brothers shoulder and so Matthew just settled for simply nodding.

"Go sit wherever you like. Are we missing anyone?" Diederich asked from the class.

"Isandro ain't here!" some boy with dark brown hair and tanned skin announced. The boy next to him chuckled. One could have heard him muttering something along lines "hopefully won't show up in few days".

"Anyone else?" Diederich asked when he sat behind his desk. Alfred spotted free places for him and his brother and started dragging Matthew into the said direction. Matthew, still a little bit nervous of everyone's (almost everyone's) stares sat at the second row next to the boy who had delivered twins' school uniforms at the day before. Alfred sat behind him, still grinning brightly.

Their teacher continued checking if everyone was there. During that, Alfred felt a very weird stare on his head. He slowly turned to look next to him. He was sitting next to a girl with long and curly reddish brown hair and blue eyes.

He kept himself from shrieking in terror.

"Maria..." he whispered, eyes wide.

"Brother..." the girl called Maria whispered. "Are we finally going to get married...? Is that why you've followed me here, because you love me?"

"No!" Alfred hissed. "And I'm not your brother! What are _you_ doing here anyway? I thought you were in Australia!"

"They transferred me here," Maria breathed. "Oh, brother, let me-"

"Aracelia and Alfred, have you something you want to tell us?"

Both of them snapped their head towards their teacher. Matthew turned to look behind him, surprised to hear a familiar name.

"Aracelia?" he asked quietly and was ignored pretty much by everyone.

"No, mister Diederich," Maria or Aracelia by her full name told their stoic teacher. "It's just a happy reunion. Right, Al?"

Alfred swallowed.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Very happy."

"Very well," Diederich said. "Alfred and Matthew, come get your books so we can get started with the lesson."

Twins stood up and went to get their books. When Alfred sat back down, he took a look at the book he had been given. Cover of the book was a picture of bright blue sky and it said with big, dark blue letters HISTORY.

He had never liked history.

"At the beginning of the 21th century, one of the most known incidents around the world was the destruction of the twin towers of World Trade Center in New York, the United States in September the 11th..."

Alfred heard their teacher's voice from the distance. _History is boring_, he thought. _Why think about past when we have future right ahead us?_

He stared out of the window. They were in the second floor so he could easily see in the middle of the yard. It was like a very beautiful garden; a pond surrounded by thousands of flowers, this time ones he could see from that distance were roses, some white and red flowers that looked similar to bells, some complicated looking yellow flowers, tulips and some little trees with red flowers in them.

It looked very beautiful in the sunlight.

Suddenly Alfred saw someone coming to the pond. It was a tall boy (man?) who wore a creamy coloured scarf and his hair were silvery.

Then their eyes met.

Alfred was captivated by violet eyes while the stranger looked straight into his sky blue ones. But then the stranger looked away and the spell broke.

The American blinked. _Déjà vu_, he thought. He turned away from the window and stared at the blackboard while their teacher went on about something concerning the United Nations. Alfred stared right in front of him for a few moments. Then he nudged his brother's hair, pulling him gently towards himself.

"What?" Matthew whispered and turned to look at Alfred, who let go of his hair. The older of the two announced quietly:

"I lost The Game."

_--the end of chapter four of "memories"_

_

* * *

_

A/N: **MERRY CHRISTMAS!! **Consider this as my Christmas present to you guys. And the hiatus is over too. Finally. I found my inspiration again! Though damn, that took so long... Sorry for the long wait, really! From this now on I'll aim for regular updates. Though not promising anything.

Foreign languages:

(French) _Quand ce position est nos domestique, après tout._ = Because this place is our home, after all.

Tell me if the French is weird. I used online translator and what I remember of my French class from over three years ago.

And YES, The Game still exists at that time! Remember this all happens in future~. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at this (remove the spaces of course): http:// en. wikipedia. org /wiki /The_ Game_%28 mind_ game%29

Anyways. We'll see again in the next chapter and there's something that you have been waiting for.


	5. Endless Journey

Now he fascinated him even more, with his sky blue eyes if the window's glass wasn't distorting the sight. He wasn't sure what was so special about him, but he just wanted to know more about him. Oh, maybe that boy could even help him?

_Also, I wonder if he was special to me..._

_

* * *

_

Chapter Five of _**Memories**_

----endless journey----

* * *

The first class had been soon over and Alfred had decided that him should get to know his classmates while Matthew settled for talking with Maria, their cousin from Mexico and who had had a crush on Alfred since they were five but her feelings were never returned.

Alfred had found out that the boy sitting at the right from him was from Lithuania and his name was Toris... something. Alfred couldn't pronounce his family name.

_Maybe he still could remembered those days when he had brought him coffee..._

Next to Toris, however, was a Norwegian boy, whose name seemed to be Tobias. He seemed like a pretty quiet guy. And Alfred would have to check later where Lithuania and Norway were.

_He had been there long before anyone else._

Behind Alfred was Andrias, apparently from the 'autonomical district of Andorra' that was in France. Or so he said, even if Alfred had never heard from such a place before.

_He was one of the oldest, seen almost everything but now only the name lives on..._

Next to Andrias was an Icelandic boy named something that Alfred couldn't pronounce, but he promptly dubbed it as 'Eric'.

_They also had met before, but it was almost like he had never even existed-_

The boy next to Matthew was named Lovino and as they had heard before, he was the other grand-son of the principal. His twin, Feliciano, was also in the same class and was sitting with Ludwig at the first row.

Alfred remembered Gilbert mentioning something about the twins being different and now he noticed how right he had been. Lovino seemed to have frown on his face all the time while Feliciano smiled like idiot and for some reason he hadn't opened his eyes for once when Alfred was there. Also, as for personality, the younger of two Italians kept rambling on about pasta and daisies and flying ponies while Lovino's most used words were 'damn' and 'tomato' and 'bastard', sometimes all of those combined.

_Like north and south, opposites._

Alfred also found out that there really were people from all around the world in their class; Netherlands, Monarchy of Belarus, the United Switzerland, Brazil, Chileria... even one national Japanese!

_Maybe they were named something else in past and because of that he couldn't remember._

The time flew fast and they had their next lesson. It was English and taught by some guy who had weird eyebrows and a weird accent that sounded a lot like British. It made Alfred laugh to no end and the guy - his name was David - had to tell him to calm down for many times. It just made Alfred laugh harder.

_That accent..._

His stomach was hurting but he couldn't stop it before the Belarusian girl, who was sitting in front of Toris gave him a very, _very _cold glare. Alfred froze in place and few turned to look what was wrong, but the girl - if Alfred remembered right, her name was Nataliya - had turned to look at the teacher who seemed to sigh with relief when Alfred finally had calmed down.

_He probably never understood her, not even back then._

After the second lesson Alfred over-heard the Brazilian and Chilerian boy talking about getting something to eat from cafeteria. His stomach decided to growl at the mention of 'something to eat' and Alfred asked if he could go with them. They agreed and so they left.

The Brazilian boy was named Carlos and the Chilerian was Gaspar. They were apparently distant cousins and there was another one from their family tree in the same class also, but we wasn't in school that day because he was having a migraine from last night, when the three cousins had sneaked out and got drunk in the nearest town. Alfred got an impression that Carlos didn't like their other cousin, Isandro, that much. It seemed more like he hated him.

_Their relations were almost as complicated as those who were at the other side of that unpredictable ocean._

When they got to the cafeteria, Alfred ordered four cheezeburgers and large cola. He got them and for his surprise, they tasted almost as good as hamburgers back in States. Gaspar chose corn, even though he said that it was called something like _choclo_. Carlos asked simply for some coffee and some brown-ish balls.

"_Bolinhos de Arroz_," Carlos had said. "You could call them Brazilian rice balls."

But at the way back to the class, Alfred looked away for a moment and the two South Americans had disappeared. He had ran to the nearest corner, but he didn't see them. He thought that they had pulled a prank on him and tried to find the class by himself. He ate his hamburgers quickly and turned in random corners as he searched for that one room.

And now, that one, completely random hallway was taunting him. He continued staring at it until he sighed and decided that it was useless.

He was already starting to walk down the hallway, when he heard something behind him. He turned around, but saw nothing. Alfred stared out of the window for a few moments, before he finally turned back around but looked over his shoulder after regular intervals. Finally he stopped on his tracks and slumped on his knees. _What if it's a ghost?!_ His mind screamed and he shivered.

If he hated something, that something were ghosts.

Suddenly he heard a _crack_ and he yelped, raising on his feet and running away. He didn't stop until he had turned at least ten times. His side was hurting and he was panting heavily, while looking around him almost hysterically.

_Damn ghosts, damn ghosts, damnghosts..._ his mind repeated and he tried running again, but stopped after few steps and instead curled up into the corner. Alfred forced himself to stop panting but his heart didn't quiet down. He looked at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, wondering what he was doing.

_"I c-can't sleep," a young boy murmured, ashamed._

_"What, ghosts again?" A warm and just tiny bit annoyed voice asked but then the owner of it sighed and tapped the bed next to him. "Come here."_

_The child rushed over to him and climbed on the bed, curling up next to the man, who gently covered the scared child with warm _warm_ sheets. He wrapped his arms around the tiny form next to him._

_"It's okay...," the man whispered - he couldn't hear the last part of the sentence, but he was sure it was his name - and petted his golden hair. "When I'm here, no ghosts can harm you."_

Alfred blinked. _What did he call me?_ He sighed and leaned onto the wall. _Maybe there really wasn't any ghosts and I'm just paranoid._ He closed his eyes and he felt oh so relaxed and he didn't want to move from his spot and neither did he hear those footsteps-

"I'm sure there is more suitable places for sleep, my comrade."

Alfred opened his eyes and raised his chin so he could look at the one who had called for him and had such a weird yet interesting accent, where r's and s's fused together so easily.

Man's form was shadowed by sunlight that was allowed to come through the windows near them. He was very tall and within his school uniform he wore a creamy white scarf. His hair was golden white and those amused yet so cold eyes were as violet as morning sky just before the rising of sun.

Alfred blinked. His mouth hang slightly open as he took in that form before him.

_It's so familiar_, his mind screamed. _Where have I seen you before? Who are you? Why are you here? Why can't I remember? Why? What-_

And there was a wall that he couldn't cross, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't remember.

_I remember from the class,_ he suddenly thought at the very back of his conscious mind. _There once was a wall like that, in Europe..._

When Alfred just continued staring, the taller man chuckled and offered his hand for Alfred to take a hold of it. At first he just stared at it dumbfoundedly, but then he took it and he swore he had done it before.

_That smirk was back and his honey-laced voice sounded like he had added some extra sugar in it. "Take my hand, Ame-"_

The man helped Alfred back to his feet and the American opened his mouth and blurted out:

"Who are you?"

The stranger looked straight into his eyes with blank face - the small smirk no longer decorated it.

"My name is Ivan Braginski, little one," the man - Ivan - replied and the smirk came back. "And who would this lost kitten right here be?"

Alfred felt his face heating up slightly which caused Ivan to just chuckle again. The blond then snapped:

"I'm Alfred F. Jones and I'm not a kitten and definitely not a lost one."

"Oh really?" Ivan asked with a challenging shade in his amused voice. "Then where are you trying to go? This corridor leads to the dorm of third year students and I would doubt that's where you're aiming at."

Alfred clamped his mouth into a tight line as he glared at the other man rather weakly.

"Fine," he snarled. "I'm lost."

He noticed that Ivan hadn't yet let go of his hand.

"Can I have my hand back?"

Ivan gave him an expecting look.

"...Please," Alfred finished grudgingly. However, Ivan seemed happy with this and let go.

_How can his hand be so cold?_ Alfred wondered as he subconsciously touched his own hand that had been given freedom.

"Where were you going?" Ivan asked and stepped away from Alfred, turning his back to him. That was when Alfred noticed how close the other man had been. "Maybe I can help you."

"...Class 1-B," Alfred told him.

"Oh, is that so?" Ivan asked with an even more amused tinge in his voice as he motioned Alfred to follow. "My dear Toris is in the same class as well, if I remember right."

"'Your dear Toris'?" Alfred repeated as he caught up to the man. "You gay or something?"

Ivan just laughed; a chilling yet so soft laugh that made Alfred shiver. The taller man shook his head and didn't reply. Though honestly, Alfred didn't _want_ to know.

"What's with your name anyway," Alfred murmured. "I can't even pronounce it."

"I'm from Russia," Ivan replied. "And you're American, да?"

"'Daa'?" Alfred asked, confused. "And yeah, I am."

"Да," Ivan repeated and sighed. "You pronounce it wrong."

"Huh?" Alfred asked and then continued muttering the word that he had just learned. "What does that mean anyway?"

"It means 'yes'," the Russian told him.

"Ahh," Alfred almost felt the light bulb lighting up in his head. "Daa."

Ivan just sighed, exasperated. "How can you pronounce such a simple word wrong?"

"Daa," Alfred continued and ignored Ivan. "Daa. Daa. Daaaa... Da. Да. Да. Hey, that sounds about right, doesn't it?!"

"I guess it does," Ivan gave him a little smile. "Congratulations, you know one word of Russian."

"Awesome," Alfred said and grinned brightly, pretty much proud of himself. Ivan chuckled once again.

The American really was amusing, though he seemed like pretty stupid. Ivan knew that he wouldn't have as much of fun with him as he had previously thought, or when he had seen the boy in the corner, curled up to himself and looking so vulnerable and peaceful.

But now he seemed just like an idiot. An amusing idiot, yes, but still an idiot. Even more of an idiot than he had thought.

"Did you arrive here yesterday?" Ivan asked to get Alfred quiet down about him being awesome. Alfred stopped his random rambling at turned to look at the Russian.

"Yeah- да!" Alfred grinned, happy with his new word. "With my twin brother."

"Is that so," Ivan replied absent-mindedly. Second Alfred? Great, or like Alfred would probably say, awesome.

"Never been abroad from the States before," Alfred told him. "So it's fun to come in Japan."

"Why did you come here?" Ivan asked. Alfred quieted down for a moment before replying:

"Our parents wanted us to have a better education than States had to offer. That country is in a pretty poor condition after the war, you know."

Ivan was quiet for a moment too before he replied:

"Russia suffered pretty much in that war too. I understand your situation."

"You do?" Alfred asked with a suprised look.

"Да, I do," Ivan smirked. Back then Alfred decided he didn't like that smirk.

During their short walk to Alfred's class, they talked about trivial things, such as the school or weather.

Only thing that Alfred really found out about the other man was that he liked sunflowers. And that wouldn't help Alfred at any possible way.

Finally they came to the door that had a sign "1-B".

"I'm afraid that you're late from your class, Alfred," Ivan noted. And that was true, the blond had ran around the school for half of his class.

"I can see it," Alfred mumbled and reached towards the door to open it. However, before he did, he turned to Ivan and said a quiet "thank you". Ivan just smiled and then left, the long scarf fluttering behind him. Alfred stared as he vanished behind the corner, inhaled and then he opened the door.

"Yo, sorry that I'm late, I kinda got lost..." he announced as the first thing when he stepped inside the class.

Everyone was staring at him.

"And what would be your name?" The teacher, this time a woman with long, curly black hair and pale skin asked.

"Alfred F. Jones," the American told her and went to sit on his place, behind Matthew. The latter one immediately turned to look at him.

"Where were you?" Matthew whispered. Alfred leaned closer to him.

"Got lost. Some guy helped me to get here," the older of the two whispered back.

"Some guy?" Matthew repeated, still whispering. "What did he look like?"

"Well... he was pretty tall and he had kinda silvery hair and he wore a scarf," Alfred described. Suddenly Toris nudged Alfred's sleeve and whispered:

"Did you say tall guy who wore a scarf?" Alfred nodded. "Stay away from him, Alfred. For your own good."

The American raised a brow. "Why?"

Toris swallowed. "He doesn't have a very good reputation here. Plus, he's pretty creepy."

"He didn't seem like a bad guy or anything," Alfred told him. "But if you say so..." Toris nodded and sat properly on his own place, messaging that the conversation was over for now.

"Alfred?"

The one mentioned turned to look at his brother.

"If Toris says so then you really should stay away from him," Matthew said with a look that said _please don't get into any trouble_. Alfred nodded. "Don't worry, I'll listen to him."

Maybe.

_--the end of chapter five of "memories"_

_

* * *

_

A/N: And here you have the new chapter that is kinda late because I thought I had posted it already. *shot* Lots of flashback-ish kinda things and they finally met!

If you want to know about what Carlos ordered, just google "Bolinhos de Arroz". And maybe I should tell you that Carlos and Gaspar are my OCs for Brazil and Chile. Their missing part, Isandro, is Argentina. Oh yeah, and David (Dewydd) is Wales. If it's still unclear, Maria (Aracelia) is Mexico. And Tobias is Norway, Eric is Iceland and Andrias is obviously Andorra.

Yes, you did read right. Monarchy of Belarus. The United Switzerland. Chileria. France's autonomical district of Andorra. There already was the third World War, people. Of course the world has changed. Belarus is a monarchy now because of many complicated things that may or may not come up later in the story.

The United Switzerland consists of former Switzerland, Liechtenstein and few areas that formerly belonged to Austria, Vorarlberg and Tyrol.

Chileria is the geographical area of former Chile, that now is split up between Argentina and Bolivia and people still unofficially refer at it as it's own nation, even if it's not. Parts that belong to Bolivia are also called Frítierra, but that name isn't so common outside the Southern America.

And so we come to the Andorra, that nowadays belongs to France. It's officially called the autonomical district of Andorra (_le terrain autonome l'Andorra_). In the past, Andorra had his own parliament but it kinda just vanished away and France took the lead. France decides practically for everything that there is to Andorra and it's called autonomical even if it isn't.

Whoa. I hope that I explained everything here. Anyways, I'll see you in the next chapter!


	6. Unforgivable Sinner

After the third lesson they had lunch. Alfred and Matthew noticed Gilbert almost immediately and decided to go eat with him.

"Francis and Antonio had something to do," the albino replied when twins asked why he was eating alone. "They skip lunch every Tuesday."

The Americans nodded in understandment and didn't question him further. While they ate, Gilbert asked how they were doing in the new school.

While Matthew explained something about their class, Alfred's eyes caught a certain scarf. He followed the creamy coloured material with his eyes and soon saw silvery hair, pale skin and violet eyes.

Ivan smiled at him. Alfred just frowned and then turned back to Gilbert and Matthew.

"What?" He asked when the two of them stared at him.

"That's the guy you were talking about?" Matthew asked and pointed at the Russian. Alfred nodded warily.

"No way, man!" Gilbert groaned. "Braginski? You gotta be out of your mind."

"Toris said something like that too," Alfred mumbled. "What's so weird about him? I mean, judging by what we talked, I don't think that we'd ever be the greatest friends, but..."

"Well, you see..." Gilbert started and leaned closer to Alfred. "Ivan Braginski is very sadistic. At this moment, he could be planning the most entertaining ways how he could torture you, who knows. Besides, I heard that he was originally sent from Russia to here because" – a pause that probably was supposed to be dramatic – "he murdered someone in his old school."

There was a silence. Then Alfred started laughing.

"Yeah right! I can believe that he would be sadistic, but I don't think he'd go around killing people," he explained quietly after he calmed down. "That's probably just some stupid rumor."

"You can ask Toris about that," Gilbert said with a low voice. "That guy knows Braginski better than anyone... expect his sisters."

"He has sisters?" Alfred asked and tried to remember if the Russian had mentioned something about that. _Probably not_, Alfred then thought.

"Yeah, Nataliya and Yekaterina," Gilbert told.

"Nataliya?" Matthew asked. "Wasn't there someone named that in our class?"

"I think so..." Alfred mumbled and paused to think. "Oh yeah, that girl with long silvery hair?"

"That's probably her," Gilbert said. "She's creepy too. They say that she's already been in jail. Thrice."

"Pfft, yeah right –" Alfred remembered the glare she had given to him during the second glass. "...Nah, I can believe that."

Gilbert chuckled. "See?"

"What about the other one?" Matthew asked.

"Oh, Yekaterina?" Gilbert noted. "She's on the same class as me. Pretty curvy and has good racks but not exactly my type. She cries at almost every single thing."

Matthew blushed slightly when the albino commented on her body. Alfred just laughed and placed his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Aww, Mattie, so innocent," the older of the two laughed with a sing-song voice. Matthew just blushed more and looked away.

Then Alfred's eyes caught Ivan's again. They stared at each others and then the world felt so narrow until all voices were so distant and Ivan's eyes just asked _so did you hear it already_ and it was a challenge.

"Fine then," America snarled and stood up.

Ivan's smile widened.

"Alfred?" A distant voice asked but Alfred merely ignored it. He walked calmly towards the Russian man and when he was right in front of him, when those eyes looked up, _up_ at his own, did he say:

"Hey."

Ivan's smile did not falter.

"Привет, Alfred."

Alfred didn't like that how his name sounded when coming from that guy's mouth.

"Have you really killed someone?"

_Oh yes he has, I have, everyone here has-_

But there was a silence, exclude all the distant voices that didn't know anything about this conversation, include all the strained ears that had caught a glimpse of this discussion and wanted to hear more.

"Maybe."

His heart skipped a beat.

"Maybe not."

Alfred inhaled.

"That ain't a good answer."

"That isn't my problem."

The American glared at him and then turned around and walked away, leaving Ivan alone.

* * *

Chapter Six of _**Memories**_

----unforgivable sinner----

* * *

"Alfred, what are you _thinking_?" Matthew practically yelled at his brother. They had just left the cafeteria and were currently walking towards their class. "You just... you just went and asked him _that_!"

"Hey, I couldn't help it!" Alfred told him. "He looked so annoying that I just had to."

"That's not a good excuse!" Matthew looked ready to rip every single hair off from his head. "I can't believe you..."

Alfred huffed and ignored his brother. Ivan really seemed annoying now when he had gotten to know him a little better. Especially his answer to Alfred's question.

_Maybe. Maybe not._

_Freaking sunflowers_, Alfred thought and frowned. _How girly is that?_

"Alfred!"

"What?" He snapped and turned to look around. "Oh. Hey, Maria..."

"Did you really do it?"

Alfred blinked. "Do what?"

Maria lowered her voice. "Ask Braginski if he really killed someone."

Silence.

"Yeah," Alfred replied. "I did. How did you-"

"Alfred!"

The one mentioned frowned and turned to look at the direction where the voice came from. It was Gaspar and Carlos.

"Did you really-?"

"Yeah, I did," Alfred told them. They gaped at him and were going to ask more when-

"Alfred!!"

Why was his name so popular today?

"So you really asked him that?" Toris asked with wide eyes. Alfred groaned.

"Yes, yes I did! What's so weird about it?" He asked. There was a silence for a few moments.

"Well, it _is_ Ivan Braginski," Gaspar shrugged.

"He has quite a reputation here, like you already know," Carlos continued.

"And then you go and ask him _that_?" Maria finished.

"Er, yeah?" Alfred asked, still not understanding. Gaspar facepalmed and Carlos smiled sheepishly.

"Everyone's kinda afraid of him..." Toris told him. Alfred glanced at him.

"What? It can't be that someone actually believes in those rumors..." he stopped midway in his sentence when he saw the looks he was getting. "...You do?"

"No shit, Sherlock!" Gaspar groaned. "Everyone knows about it. Even the principal! Everything's prepared for that if he even as much as _tries_ to kill someone."

"Isn't that kinda..." Alfred laughed sheepishly but then stopped when Gaspar glared at him. _...Over-reacted?_ He finished in his mind.

"Anyway, the class is starting," Carlos sighed. "Drael will skin us alive if we're late."

"Drael?" Matthew asked. "What do we have now anyway?"

"Geography. And he is our teacher. His full name is Vladimir Drael, but everyone just calls him Drael," Toris explained. "Let's go."

Alfred and Matthew followed four of them as they walked down the corridor. Alfred didn't feel like getting lost again.

But when they arrived at their destination, someone was waiting for them.

"Which one of you asked Braginski that absurd question?" The boy, who had messy sandy blond hair and weird eyebrows – That kinda reminded Alfred about their English teacher. Maybe they were related or something. – asked. As an answer, everyone pointed at Alfred who stared at the Briton – that accent was a dead give-away – innocently.

Everyone else but Alfred went inside the room.

"What was the last time when you shaved your brows?" The American asked almost immediately when they were left alone.

"Excuse me?!" Shorter of the two almost screamed.

"I asked-" Alfred almost repeated but other stopped him:

"I dare you to say that again."

There was a silence for a moment.

"Okay," Alfred sighed. "So what do you want? Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Arthur Kirkland, you git," the Brit replied. "And I wanted to meet the idiot who apparently thinks that murder is an every-day incident."

"Whoa, wait!" Alfred raised his hands in front of himself protectively. "You believe that too? Seriously, what the hell."

Arthur raised one of those large brows. Alfred suppressed his urge to laugh.

"You really are a moron," Arthur noted. "I was right, expecting something like that from an American."

"What do you mean?" The American in question asked.

"I hate Americans," Arthur stated and then added as an after-thought: "And French. But more Americans."

_I loved you and gave my everything to you, but you left me alone. I hate you._

Alfred laughed. "That's weird. And kinda racist."

Arthur glared at him and their eyes met.

They stared at each others for few moments, before Arthur finally turned his back to Alfred and left.

Alfred's eyes followed his back until he disappeared behind the corner. Then the American left to his class. His mind was filled with one sentence.

_How can anyone have so green eyes?_

It was that feeling, how you know the answer, but you just can't remember it. It's at the closest borders of your memory, it almost reaches your conscious mind and you just can't give it a name.

Alfred decided that he would ask Arthur next time they met.

_--the end of chapter six of "memories"_

_

* * *

_

**Author notes:** I don't have much to say, expect... oh _God_, what the hell is with this drama. I mean, of course there is supposed to be drama. But... ah, whatever. Nations like to gossip, eh? (Even if they kinda aren't nations anymore.)

привет, privyet = "hello" (Russian)


	7. What If Tomorrow Wouldn't Come

"_What would you do if you were a normal human?"_

_There was rustling of clothes and a slightly surprised look._

"_Why are you asking such a thing?"_

_The other one, the younger and shorter man – or boy, yes, he was still just a boy – shrugged._

"_I want to know."_

_A silence. A thoughtful silence, a crafty silence. One of the kind where you would want to shift in discomfort, waiting for an answer that you weren't hoping to get, answer that you never wanted but by some weird twist of destiny, still asked._

_The taller man, the one who had seen more, the one who knew what pain was like, what desperation was like, turned to look out of the large window once again. And he looked carefully, looked upon his own land, his own children._

"_That is none of your business. Now go away before I really do declare a war on you."_

* * *

Chapter Seven of _**Memories**_

---what if tomorrow wouldn't come---

* * *

"So are you a vampire?" Alfred asked abruptly, cutting their teacher of in the middle of his talk. The pale skinned and raven haired teacher grimaced.

"No, Alfred. I am not," he replied. "Now will you let me continue with what I was talking about?"

"But if you come from Transylvania, you should be one," Alfred insisted. "It's a small island somewhere near Europe with _huge_ black castles and lots of bats and there's always thunder storms, right?"

There was silent for a moment when the teacher massaged the bridge of his nose, wondering about how he should explain to this child where Transylvania was. Few chuckles could be heard from around the classroom.

"Okay, listen now Alfred," he said soon. "You should be learning this in history soon, but Transylvania hasn't actually been a country in a long long time. Nowadays, it's just a part of Bulgaria. Now, do you know where Bulgaria is?"

The tall teacher – Vladimir Drael was his name – pointed at the map behind him, staring at the other expectantly while waiting for his reply. Alfred hesitated.

"Of course I know where Bu... Bulge... _that_ is!" He exclaimed.

"Really?" Vladimir asked, giving him a small smile. "Then you may show it to us. Come here."

The American blinked at the other before standing up and stomping over to the map. He observed it for a moment, trying to make out where Europe was. Oh wait, the map was saying that _right there_...

...And why wasn't there named any of the countries? Though the country his teacher had mentioned was probably near Russia. Or was it near France? He wasn't even sure which one of the countries was France.

He felt many eyes on his back and quickly picked some country that was next to Russia, pointing it with his index finger. Everything was near Russia, so obviously the country mentioned was somewhere there as well!

"It's this one right here!" He told his teacher who stepped closer to take a look on the spot he was pointing at. Soon he sighed loudly.

"Alfred, I believe that is Poland," he said and pointed the real country out for him. "Bulgaria is right here, next to Ukraine. Transylvania would be in the northern part of it."

There was snickers heard from everywhere around the class. The blond boy felt his cheeks burning bright red when he turned around and stalked back to his seat, his eyes remaining at the floor.

When he sat down, Vladimir continued with their original subject, that was Europe's economy, or something similar to that. Alfred didn't really care; he didn't like school. The lessons were boring and he hated the fact he had to just sit for _hours_, doing absolutely nothing. It was _not_ fun. Not even one a bit.

He had tried convincing his parents to let him go for a piloting school. Obviously that hadn't worked out, because _if you become a pilot, you will be called to the war, to Africa or to Europe, and it's too dangerous for you, Alfred_. But he always thought that if he would be called to the service, he would refuse. He just wanted to _fly_. He didn't want to go to _war_.

_He didn't want to see it again._

And so he was here, looking after his brother, who really didn't need anyone to take care of him. Seriously, their mom was just so over-protective it was almost ridiculous. Not to even mention how much of crying and complaining there had been when Maria left for Australia to study.

_Maria..._

Alfred glanced at the girl next to him. Like his sister but actually only his cousin. His and Matthew's cousin.

Ever since that accident Maria – Aracelia Maria Rios by her full name – had always been with those two brothers and she was like a sister to them. Sister that they never had, daughter that their mother never had even if she wanted one.

But oh God she started to get scary when they grew older. Alfred _swore_ that she once attempted to _murder_ him with that damn _knife_. And Matthew had just laughed when Alfred had escaped for his life, that bastard. (Matthew knew that Alfred was just being paranoid; Maria was a sweet girl, still is.)

Whenever Maria said she loved Alfred, he ran away. Seriously, it was _scary as hell_.

Alfred sighed when he turned his eyes away from Maria and looked at the clock instead. It said twelve twenty-five and it caused Alfred to sigh again.

Twenty minutes left until the next break. Then again, for another forty-five minutes, geography. Damn it, were they torturing him on purpose? Let's not get further into the question how one can torture other accidentally...

..._Tic, toc, tic, toc..._

* * *

Matthew Jones sighed. It was only the first day and his brother had already managed to get lost, be late for a lesson, make something like friends with weird people and somewhere along the way he had got himself kind of famous. The younger of the two brothers wondered, when would it be that he didn't have to look after his whimsical big brother anymore?

The class finally ended and Alfred was one of the first people getting out of the door. Who knew where he would be going next and to be honest, Matthew was tired of looking after him. He wasn't there to babysit Alfred, he was there to study!

_Even after such a long time, I'm still doing this._

Matthew stood up from his chair with a determined expression. He would absolutely _not_ save Alfred today – no, not under any circumstances – if he did something stupid (again)!

The blond smiled. He could almost _smell_ the freedom that came with not having to take care of his stupid, arrogant, selfish, loud, stubborn brother. World, here he comes-

"Shouldn't you be looking after your brother, Matthew?"

-or not.

Matthew turned to look at the direction of the voice and smiled sheepishly. "I am not his babysitter, Maria," he told her (politely). "He is old enough to take care of himself."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Maria murmured. "What if he falls and hurts himself? That would be so horrible, Matthew!"

The blond chuckled but then frowned when the Mexican girl didn't seem to be joking. He licked his suddenly dry lips wet and spoke with slight hesitation: "Do you... do you still have a crush on him?"

Maria stared at Matthew like he had asked something that was very clear. "Of course," she replied. "He is the most important person to me. We are practically engaged, aren't we?"

"Maria, that is not-" Matthew began but Maria cut him off.

"It is true," she said. "Even if... even if he doesn't feel the same way about me."

_I don't want to lose something dear to me again._

It was Matthew's turn to stare. He had known Maria for a long time and had learnt quite a lot about her during all those years they spent together in their childhood but he had never heard Maria admitting that maybe Alfred actually didn't have that kind of feelings for her.

Although it probably was to be expected, with being abroad for that long and separated from everything she knew to be safe and familiar. She had had enough time to think and to grow.

_He remembered those days when she seemed to be the wisest of them all even if she really wasn't any older than them; when the two brothers cried, she would come and embrace them, whisper sweet nothing in their ears on that unfamiliar language, which had come with those from across that vast pool of salty, green water-_

Or was it just a shadow of something that he should remember?

Matthew blinked and shook his head, eyes lowering to the floor.

"Matthew?" Maria asked suddenly. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," the American replied. "I'm not just feeling too well."

"Should we visit the school nurse?" Maria asked with a worried tinge in her voice, hand reaching to grab the boy's shoulder.

"No, no," Matthew almost yelled and raised his hands up in defense. "There is no need for something like that. It is nothing too serious."

"If you say so," she gave the shoulder a gentle squeeze before letting go and then she walked past Matthew.

"I'll be going now," she told the other when he turned around to look at her. "I have to give few papers to principal Vargas."

Matthew nodded but Maria had already vanished behind the corner. Now left alone in the class room that had been emptied of students and even their teacher had left for his break, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, head turning to look out of the window.

On that wall, there was a line of large windows with no curtains. The sun wasn't shining directly into the rather dim room but outside the trees and flowers surrounding the whole building were bathing in the bright sunlight while lazy wind made the leaves and petals tremble at times.

It looked almost unreal; how it was so bright outside and then darker inside in the class room. It was like there was a line between two worlds, eternally separated from one another. Matthew hummed. Yes, _unreal_ would be right word to describe that sight.

He turned away from the sight and decided that he should take this quarter – actually, now only ten minutes – to wander on the halls. They were really impressive when he thought about his former school back in the States; because the country was _still_ recovering from the war (it had been such a long time since there last time had been one on their own soil after all) and their family lived in New York, where the bombings had been the worst so their school building itself had been very cramped and simple.

Matthew walked down the corridor that he remembered to lead over at the principal's office, passing only few people. It was the one that had large windows covering one of its walls while the other was hidden under many paintings. He stopped and his eyes strayed from one skillful picture to another. Most of them seemed to be about different kinds of flowers although there was few landscapes and nameless persons.

"What a surprise, a git like you actually appreciates art?"

Matthew turned around and blinked when he saw the boy with huge eyebrows from earlier – he doesn't remember his name, was he ever even told that?

"Eh?" Was all that came from his mouth.

"Don't you 'eh' me!" The other shouted and Matthew winced inwardly. What had _he_ done? Wasn't it Alfred who that guy was angry at– oh.

"Excuse me, but I-I think you are mistaking me for my brother," Matthew said quietly, as if afraid that the Brit – do I have to remind you about that _accent_ – would jump at him and eat him alive.

The other blond blinked. "What did you say?" He asked and Matthew sighed and repeated, "You are most likely mistaking me for my brother."

The one of the bushy eyebrows raised when he stared at Matthew. Then realization seemed to dawn on him and his cheeks flushed light red when he sputtered.

"I apologize, I didn't think, I mean, I was so sure," he tried to explain.

"Don't worry, I am used to it," Matthew said and smiled sheepishly. "Though I don't seem to remember your name either. Do you mind telling?"

"I'm sorry for lack of my manners," the Brit sighed. "My name is Arthur Kirkland. What is yours? And did you say you are that bloody American's brother?"

"I am Matthew Jones and yes, Alfred is my twin brother," Matthew replied and then grimaced. "I have to apologize for lack of _his_ manners though. He can be very straightforward at times."

"He did succeed in giving me a small headache, yes," Arthur agreed and glanced over at the paintings. "Do you like them?"

"Eh?" Matthew turned to look at them too and then glanced back at the Brit. "Ah, yes, they're very nice. There seems to be a lot of art on school area."

"Principal does like art," Arthur nodded. "He is very skilled in it himself. Do you see that landscape one, with the bridge in it?"

Matthew looked at the direction where Arthur was pointing at. There indeed was a painting with a bridge in it. It could have been a photograph, taken on some of the early summer days when sun warmed the earth and sky was almost free of any puffy clouds.

"Yes," Matthew replied to Arthur's question. "It is beautiful."

"Principal Vargas drew that," the Brit continued. At Matthew's surprised look he said: "There are other paintings done by him all around the school too. Don't look so surprised, aren't Italians known of their skills in art?"

Matthew nodded slowly. "Eh, I certainly didn't expect that. Principal could indeed be a great artist," he said. "I wonder why he became a principal instead."

"Maybe it was always just a hobby," Arthur shrugged and then his expression turned thoughtful. "I don't think anyone has ever asked that from him. Maybe his grandsons would know."

"Oh, Lovino and... Feliciano, right?" Matthew asked and Arthur nodded. "They are in the same class as Alfred and me."

The Brit hummed. "That Alfred..." he started and Matthew turned to look at him. "How could he have enough nerve to ask Braginski something that personal?"

Matthew blinked. "He probably didn't even think about it to be personal or anything," he said then. "If he has something to say, he says it. That's just the way he is."

There was quiet for a moment but then Arthur chuckled. "It must be a pain in the ass to have that kind of a brother," he said and Matthew gave a small laugh.

"Indeed it is," he agreed.

"You know, I don't usually like Americans," Arthur told him. "But you are nicer than others that I have met. Including that brother of yours."

Matthew found his fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt when he smiled, a little embarrassed from the compliment. "Thanks," he said and briefly wondered if he should ask what he had in his mind, but continued on anyway, "though I can understand why you wouldn't like Americans. Our country hasn't been exactly nice to Britain."

"Actually, I don't care about things like that," Arthur snorted. "It's more of a personal grudge really."

"Oh?" Matthew smiled. "It's kinda like how Alfred doesn't like Russians for some reason. They haven't been communists for almost a century and he still calls them that."

"That isn't promising any good, seeing that Braginski indeed is Russian," Arthur sighed. "Although as long as they don't destroy the school building or start a second Cold War, I don't see any reason why I should even care."

Matthew found himself laughing again. "Alfred is an interesting person," he told the other. "He has those evil puppy-eyes that make people comply to his will, better watch out for those."

Arthur laughed too but then stopped when he happened to glance over the direction where Matthew's class was. "It was really nice to meet you, Matthew," he said and then pointed at the students that were slowly flowing inside the classroom. "But I believe your class is starting."

Matthew spun around and then shot an apologetic glance over at the Briton before smiling and then waved his hand a little. "See you later," he said and turned his back to the other, starting to walk away.

"I hope so too," he heard Arthur saying and was already turning around to look at him when he heard Alfred's enthusiastic yell.

"Hey hey Matthew, listen, there are these really good cookies in cafeteria – are you even listening to me?" Alfred asked and skipped to his younger brother. Matthew laughed and Alfred stared at him as if he had went mad. Wait, had he?

"Don't worry, Mattie!" Alfred suddenly yelled and Matthew blinked in confusion. "I, the hero, will save you!"

"What?" Matthew asked and pushed at his brother's chest to get the other farther away from him. "I don't need any saving. Though you will need someone to save _you_ if you won't let me get into the class now!"

The older of the two poked his brother's head and laughed that loud, irritating laugh of his. "Aww, don't be so snarky Mattie!"

"Both of you will need someone to save you from detention if you don't get into the classroom immediately!"

The brothers flinched and then turned to look at their irritated teacher. "Okay, okay..." they said in unison and sighed. Alfred continued poking Matthew's head until they sat down on their seats. Then he took his pen and started poking his brother's neck until their geography teacher – who, as a side-note, wasn't a vampire – threatened to throw both of them out of the classroom when Matthew had started throwing pieces of eraser at Alfred and their pencil versus eraser fight had grown into hitting each other with their books. It's not like they didn't continued passing notes about how much another sucked and Alfred made many jokes about the verb 'suck'.

Sounds like another normal day in their life.

_--the end of chapter seven of "memories"_

* * *

**Author notes:** I give up. I just can't keep up with regular updates. Expect this baby to be updated "whenever I feel like it". Let's hope we'll get into the actual plot before this bolts into a million chapter fic. Though it currently seems like it will do just that.

Though here it finally is, the seventh chapter with lots and lots of good Mattie-centered stuff! Oh hoh ho, Mattie and Artie interacting? Actually it was originally going to be France buuuut then I decided that they had already met so it would be fun to have some Arthur here. (And I was reading some UK/Canada fics earlier and then I was like OHMIGOD.)

Yeah. I just had to put that Cold War thing in there. Let's hope they do _not_ start it.

OH YEAH, you guessed right, it's Transylvania that you are seeing there! And what is this talk about Transylvania being part of Bulgaria, isn't it in Romania? Oh but Bulgaria decided that he was into imperialism and that's the story short. Just to make it clear, Romania still exists, part of him just belongs to Bulgaria.

I'm enjoying way too much about writing Al and Mattie being your normal brothers. Seriously, they're just so cute.

Next update coming hopefully soon~ See you then!


	8. just another loop in the hangman's noose

Russia stared right ahead of him impassively. It was rather dark but somehow he still saw quite well. It didn't really make any sense but he was already used to it and he was tired of wondering about useless things like that.

However, now he had something exciting in his mind. After waiting for so long, finally, _finally_.

He smiled as a figure approached him and he turned to welcome his visitor.

* * *

Chapter Eight of _**Memories**_

---just another loop in the hangman's noose---

* * *

"Hey Mattie, let's go outside!" Alfred demanded, his legs swinging as he sat on his brother's desk.

"Why?" Matthew asked as he put their books away in the shelf reserved for them. They had been told that they wouldn't get any homework and only times when they got something to do outside the classes was when they had exams or when they were supposed to write an essay or something of the sorts. This suited Alfred just _fine_.

"Why not?" Alfred bounced down and spun around to properly look at Matthew. "It's warm, sunny and I've been close to dying from boredom because of sitting, sitting and sitting while listening to some shit. I want to do something productive!"

Matthew sighed. "Try to take school seriously, would you? Mom and dad are paying for this," he noted and Alfred waved his hand absent-mindedly.

"Yeah yeah," he grumbled. "But seriously, let's do something fun. Or I can always search that Braginski bastard and go bother him..."

"If you do that you'll get yourself deeper into problems," Matthew deadpanned. Alfred pouted.

"There isn't any problems!" He exclaimed. "Come on, did you see how he looked at me? He was just _asking for it_, seriously!"

"And you shouldn't have given him the satisfaction of actually going and asking him about some stupid rumors!" Matthew snapped at him. That made Alfred become silent for a moment before he opened his mouth again, only to ask, "Why were you talking with that weirdo earlier? And why did he notice you? It's kind of creepy, you know, when people actually talk to you."

Matthew sighed. "You mean Arthur? He mistook me for you." Alfred snorted. "Shut your mouth, we had an intelligent conversation! I really suggest you to leave Ivan alone."

"Ah ah ah!" Alfred raised one finger right in front of his brother's face. "Don't try to change the subject!"

"You're the one changing the subject in the first place!" Matthew cried and attempted to bite at Alfred's finger. Alfred only laughed loudly at the pathetic try and skipped his way out of the classroom.

However, just when he was out of the door, he bumped into something.

Alfred stared right ahead of him for a moment. Something creamy colored and soft looking... Then he raised one hand to place it against the obstacle before him. _Hmm_, he mused. _A chest. A man's chest, may I add. Very well-toned in fact..._

"You are very amusing, Alfred, but could you please stop groping my chest?"

The American in question drew away immediately, glaring at Ivan. "Well excuse _me, asshole,_" he sneered. "I didn't _ask_ you to step right in front of me and prevent me from doing something fun. You know, I could be _outside_ at this very moment but now I have to stare at your stupid face instead!"

"You really don't have to stare at my face if you find it so unappealing," Ivan noted. "And you may move outside if you want. I am not stopping you."

Alfred wrinkled his nose and sneered again as a response, glancing at the classroom if he could see his brother and tell him to _get the fuck out of there_ with him but he saw no-one. He sighed and started stomping down the corridor, hoping to quickly find the door that would lead him outside and away from the Russian –

Were those _footsteps_ behind him?

He spun around to meet Ivan's way too innocent smile. "Why are you following me?" Alfred asked, turning his back to the other again and he continued to walk away.

"Actually, I wanted to go outside too," Ivan hummed. It wasn't hard for him to keep up with Alfred's pace, the American noted sullenly. "I won't have class for an hour so I have just enough time to wander around and you just happened to be there."

"Why were you waiting just outside my classroom anyway?" Alfred grumbled and peeked down one corridor as the way parted. He was already starting to turn when Ivan told him, "The door isn't in that direction." Alfred made a soft 'hmph' sound and continued walking down the same corridor.

"As for waiting outside your classroom, I was just passing it when I heard you talking to yourself in a rather annoying manner," Ivan replied to the other's question.

"I wasn't talking to myself," Alfred told him. "I was talking to Matthew."

"Who?"

"My brother."

Ivan's brows furrowed in thought as he tried to remember if there had been someone with Alfred in the classroom after all. After a moment he shrugged it away and took a turn to right. Alfred sputtered something incoherent, turning on his heels and followed Ivan.

...Wait. Why was he following Ivan? He was supposed to go outside with Matthew! But Matthew had disappeared somewhere. He did it a lot so Alfred was already used to it but for some reason his brother always chose the worst times to become invisible. The blond sighed, choosing to follow Ivan until he got out of the building. Then he would run away from the other and enjoy some sun. By himself.

Alone.

He didn't like being alone.

"Are you going to meet with someone outside?" Alfred asked, as innocently as possible.

"Not with anyone that I would know about," Ivan simply replied. It seemed like the other didn't want to continue the conversation.

"Neither do I," Alfred told him anyway, giving the other a sideways glance.

"Would you like to see the sunflower field?" Ivan asked softly after a silence. Alfred shrugged, inwardly punching the air in victory.

* * *

Matthew let out an irritated growl when he heard the sound of footsteps disappearing down the corridor, along with his brother's way too familiar loud voice booming throughout the hall.

Alfred had forgotten him again. He hadn't even noticed him when he had waved and practically yelled at the other to notice him!

He couldn't believe that even his twin brother forgot about him. Was he really that invisible? Oh how many times he had already asked himself that question... The answer was obviously yes, he was just that invisible. Even the most important person to him didn't notice him.

Matthew walked out of the classroom, feeling down. He wondered if there was a library somewhere in the large building. Obviously there was but the real problem was, where? Why did the school have to be so huge? He had seen hardly any students. Of course it was only their first day there...

It was only their first day there.

He inwardly facepalmed. Matthew couldn't believe that it was only the _first day_ and Alfred had already done this and that and that too!

...Wait, hadn't he just decided that _today_ he wouldn't worry about his brother?

Matthew groaned. He wanted to hit his head against the wall, _repeatedly_. He should be out there doing something productive, like finding that damn library! Yes, now he would begin his first adventure in the new school! And no one could stop him!

"How lame," someone noted.

No one could stop him.

"Hello Gilbert," Matthew sighed and turned around. "What is?"

Absolutely no one.

"This," the albino waved his hand around to emphasize his words. "Nothing awesome is going on! Even you are wandering around the corridors like some kid who lost his teddy bear!"

Maybe he just wasn't allowed to have his adventures.

Matthew was about to mumble a quiet protest when he realized something (else than that he really couldn't protest).

"You notice me," he simply said, causing the other to blink.

"Uh, yeah?" Gilbert said. "Why wouldn't I notice you?"

"I mean, no one else does," Matthew explained. "Even Alfred forgot me just now. We were supposed to go and take a look around outside but then he literally bumped into Ivan and they just left."

Gilbert started laughing suddenly. It was loud and arrogant, but somehow so very _real_. "Oh don't worry. They're probably just around the corner making out," he wheezed after finishing with his sudden show of amusement. Matthew felt his cheeks heating up, letting out a squeak.

"However," Gilbert announced suddenly, now fully recovered. "I have decided. I, the awesome me, shall help _you_ to become awesome!"

Matthew gave him a blank look. "Excuse me?"

"I'll help you to make people to notice you! Because that's just so not awesome," the albino snorted.

"And just how are you planning to do that?" The American asked incredulously.

"I don't have any frickin' idea!" Gilbert told him. "But we're starting by getting some ice cream from the cafeteria!"

With that Matthew found himself to be dragged by his arm at the completely opposite direction of what he had originally thought about going to. His protests were promptly ignored (actually Gilbert just didn't hear them. Not that he wouldn't have ignored them anyway).

* * *

"Wow, there's so many of them!" Alfred exclaimed as he shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight with his hand.

"Yes," Ivan replied and caressed one sunflower's golden petals. "I believe they were here originally and principal decided to keep them that way. I'm glad he did that."

"It's beautiful," Alfred agreed. Ivan glanced at him.

"It is," he murmured and turned to look at the field before them.

_It must be destiny, do you not think so, Ivan?_

Ivan shook his head, concentrating on the view.

"Hey," Alfred asked softly after long moment of only golden field, warm wind and their even breathing. "Sorry but I really want to know. Did you kill someone?"

There was quiet once again but now only Alfred breathed evenly. Then Ivan let out a deep sigh that he had been holding and shook his head gently, wind weaving its way into his hair and messing it up.

"No," he replied just as softly. "I didn't. I would never even imagine to do something like that to another person."

_Maybe not anymore, but oh, you know the past._

His hand tightened into a fist but Alfred didn't notice.

_Don't run away from it._

"So it was just a stupid rumor," the American laughed. "I'm kind of glad you know. I hate it when people hurt each other."

"Like in war?" Ivan almost whispered. He needed distraction, _distraction_.

"Yeah," Alfred replied, eyes fixated on the field. "Like in war. That just so... unnecessary, stupid, I don't know. It's _wrong_."

"I understand," Ivan nodded, closing his eyes briefly and enjoying the feeling of sun kissing the skin of his face. "There are many people who think like that. Still, there is war. Like now in Africa and Eastern Europe."

"I'm well aware about where there are wars right now, Ivan," Alfred snorted but then his tone softened once again. "Aren't you one of those people?"

"I believe war is necessary on some level," the Russian replied and slowly opened his eyes. "I think it is cruel, yes. The third world war was horrible, even without the nuclear weapons."

"Oh yeah, those," Alfred mumbled, shifting his weight from one foot to another and stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I've heard about them sometimes in the news and in the history class. I can't believe something like that existed."

Ivan hummed and raised his hand again to gently caress the sunflower petals again. "Humans are weird, aren't they?"

Those words seemed to snap Alfred out of the sweet, quiet mood that had descended upon them. What the hell he was doing? Having a deep conversation with... with this weirdo? _Seriously_?

It... it felt like a dream now. Like it hadn't been Alfred himself talking _at all_.

What the hell.

Ivan seemed to realize the strange situation too. Suddenly the air was very awkward and uneasy.

"Uh, I," Alfred started, shifting in discomfort. "I think I should go to search for Mattie. I mean, he just disappeared and who knows what he's up to."

"I believe those words would be more appropriate coming out of your brother's mouth, don't you think so?" Ivan smirked.

"Why you–!" Alfred started. "I'm not like that!"

"You aren't?" Ivan asked with mock surprise.

"Stop it!" The American growled and turned his back to the other. "Aah, I can't believe I just had a civil conversation with you!"

"I didn't even know you were able to do that," the other agreed, nodding with a thoughtful expression.

"Go away," Alfred snarled. "No, wait. Actually _I_ will go away. Goodbye, bastard."

"Don't get lost when searching for your way back in, idiot," Ivan commented almost absent-mindedly when Alfred stomped away from him, back to the school building.

The Russian continued petting the sunflowers. His brows furrowed in deep thoughts.

_As fiery as always._

He growled and almost crushed the petals in his hand before realizing what he was doing. Ivan fussed over the golden flower, making sure it was okay before sighing in relief.

"Vanya?"

He turned around, surprised to hear the familiar voice. "Katyusha," he noted. "Why are you here?"

"Can I not go around the school area as I please?" His older sister asked with a gentle smile, sun catching on her blond hair. It wasn't the same color as Alfred's, Ivan noted briefly. Alfred's hair was more... golden. Just like the sunflower petals.

"Of course you can," Ivan hurried to reply, his hand falling to his side. "I just thought..."

Katyusha laughed quietly. "Actually I wanted to see you. And you're always here when you don't have a class. But who was that with you?"

"Alfred," Ivan simply replied. "A new student."

"The one who asked you that rude question?" Katyusha gasped. "Oh Ivan. Are you sure you know what you are doing?"

_No, I'm not._ "Yes I am, Katyusha. There is no need to worry," he assured. "But why did you want to see me?"

"I wanted to make sure you remember your appointment for tomorrow," she said quietly.

"Are you still worried about that?" Ivan smiled. "I have not forgotten. I have been visiting her for a while already."

He wondered if that really was the reason why his sister wanted to see him.

"You have," Katyusha smiled back. "I'm glad you do. She just wants to help you, just as I do."

Inwardly Ivan grimaced. "I understand, big sister." In reality... he kind of didn't. "Was there something else?"

"Oh no," Katyusha waved her hand a little to emphasize her words. "I just saw you here, that is all."

Ivan nodded and turned his gaze back to the field. "Alright."

* * *

"I'll never eat ice cream again," Matthew groaned. Alfred laughed and kicked his shoes away.

"I can't believe you spent two hours eating ice cream," the older of the two brothers said.

"Neither can I," Matthew mumbled and shifted to a more comfortable position on his bed. "I should stay away from Gilbert. Next time he'll probably make me... do something. So, Al. How was your day?"

Alfred grinned wolfishly at the sudden change of the subject. "Aww," he started but Matthew threw a pillow at him and Alfred decided not to say out loud what he was thinking. "It was awesome! I can't remember their names but those guys from our class are awesome, it was awesome to see Maria again and actually stay alive, the food is just _superlicious_ and... it was awesome!"

"Oh dear God, say _awesome_ for one more time and it's something else than just a pillow I'll throw at you," Matthew threatened and glared at his twin. "And what does 'superlicious' mean?"

"It means the food tastes just so super!" Alfred explained. It didn't really explain anything so Matthew just let it be.

"I'm surprised you didn't get into a violent fight with Ivan, though," Matthew noted.

"Don't talk to me about that guy," Alfred grumbled. "There, you ruined my mood."

"I'm so very sorry," Matthew said and rolled his eyes, not sounding to be all that sorry.

There was a silence for few moments before Alfred asked, "Is it true that you'll start seeing ghosts if you drink more than seven cups of coffee?"

"You _still_ believe in stuff like that?" Matthew asked, raising his head from his pillows. They were so soft...

"I want to test," Alfred announced and abruptly sprinted out of the room.

Matthew sighed and turned on the bed.

_--the end of chapter eight of "memories"_

* * *

A/N: Hello. I'm alive. This fic is still ongoing. I'm sorry if this chapter was confusing but as I was thinking about everything I have planned for this I realized that this fic is indeed very very confusing, just as a warning. Oh yeah, in the beginning he's supposed to be called Russia, just to make that clear because I have confused their human and nations names before. Now it's on purpose.

The reason this chapter is so late is that I haven't really _wanted_ to write anything in a while and on top of that I got into a new fandom so I have been kind of distracted with that. But today I decided that I want to get into the actual plot and finish this damn Thursday that never seems to be ending, because the day hasn't changed even once in these eight chapters. Now how fail is _that_?

So now I also started co-writing a fic with **TheEvilMuffinToaster**. You'll find the link to that in my profile, I suggest you to take a look at it. It has still only one chapter but it will continue. ...Now you don't have any reason to believe me, seeing that I'm such a slow writer. But she'll kick my ass if we let this down, so...

Seriously, just how do you do that? How can some people write so well and so _fast_? I'm jealous, I admit that.

Also, I have to ask you... is there any not!canon Hetalia character that you would like to see? Because I really want to get my OCs on the stage but I can't decide who's next. And please tell me, do you think that Ireland is female or male? I can't seem to get over that one question. I've already had a suggestion concerning that, thank you for that by the way, but now I've decided to ask all of you too!

These author notes got kind of long. Sorry. I won't promise anything about the next chapter, expect that I'll try to enlighten the _actual_ plot to you. It's complicated but I'll try.


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